How to take down an empire with voices in your head

33. Hiding Behind Healing Wounds

Ranboo's body shook from the pain and the cold, his eyes stung due to his surroundings making him almost want to close his eyes and accept the worse in this situation. His mind felt hot, wishing to have the ability to breathe right now. But he couldn't. Here he was, in freezing cold water, obsidian on all sides of him.

He didn't know how deep the water went, he couldn't see the bottom of this strange obsidian room, but it looked like it went down for a while. He could see the ceiling, just above him was a sea lantern hanging from the ceiling. And if he could reach it then he would be able to breathe. But his limbs felt too heavy and moved too slow, so father and farther he slipped away slowly from the dim light.

A sudden grip on his ankle made him look down, shocked when he saw Tommy. His face looked pale under the sea lantern light, and his wide eyes looked up at Ranboo who returned a similar look. They didn't want to die here, neither of them did.

So Ranboo reached a hand down to Tommy, trying to get him closer to the surface so they both could make it. And it was going well, the new company seemed to motivate Ranboo in a way, probably the fact that he would be saving not only himself, but his friend once they made it out.

But then Ranboo noticed something else in the water, underneath the two of them and slowly extending towards them. Long and twisted vines stretched out, making Ranboo try and push them to go faster. The crimson colorcolour of the vines mixed oddly with the blueish light of the lantern, but nonetheless, Ranboo could tell they were vines from the egg.

The vines moved too quickly, and Ranboo panicked as they wrapped themselves around Tommy's legs who immediately tried to fight back. Ranboo rushed to help Tommy, trying to set him free from the vines' hold.

It was a struggle, and they failed. Ranboo tried to grab onto Tommy's hand as he was pulled down, but of course, he didn't succeed. It grew dark below him, no longer able to see Tommy or the vines as he swayed in the water, completely shocked about what just happened.

An arrange of bubbles flew above his head, a reminder of the shout Tommy tried to let out underwater, only to be dragged away. And now Ranboo was really considering giving up, letting his limbs relax as he slowly sinks away from the light. He had failed to save Tommy, he was gone. Just like that.

And just like that, Ranboo woke up. He shot up in the bed, sitting up as he scammed the room.

He was met with the familiar stone brick walls of Eret's castle, the light shining through the coloured windows that set rays of their respective colour about the room.

His breath was heavy and his head hurt, he reached a hand to wipe across his forehead as he tried to relax.

'A dream.' he tried reminding himself that, the blanket resting on top of his lower half reminded him that it was in fact, just a dream.

A warm hand on his shoulder made him flinch, relaxing when he saw it was Tubbo.

"You alright, Ranboo?" Tubbo asked, seeming to have just woken up as well. He rubbed his eyes before resting his hand on top of the blankets that swallowed his legs, making him look even more tired.

"I'm fine. Had a really scary dream." Ranboo confessed, sighing afterwards. Tubbo hummed with a nod of his head before resting it against Ranboo's shoulder.

"I thought it was something way worse, you woke me up." he mumbled.

Ranboo gave an apologetic smile, finally being able to relax. "I'm sorry. How's that?"

"I forgive your apology. But, I want to know what the dream was." Tubbo returned the joke, raising a hand to fix his hair.

Ranboo paused for a second, leaning on Tubbo with a frown. "Tommy."